Sunday, March 05, 2006

It was with great interest that I read George Peper's article in the March 2006 issue of Links Magazine. Peper was the editor of Golf Magazine when it launched the original top 100 world rankings. Thus, it was Peper as much as anyone who can claim to have created what is now a mania. The article is basically Peper's equivalent of going to confession.

His comments are not to be dismissed since he is a thoughtful observer of the golf world. There does seem to be an obession among developers and designers to get a course into the top 100 rankings. We agree that actively courting raters and trying to influence the outcome is wrong. It remains to be seen how the longevity of many of the new entrants onto the list will survive long term, especially some of them built to have host major championships. Peper says "Egomanicial developers now say, 'build me a top 100 course no matter what it costs." Hmmm. Sounds like a certain New York based developer we know who has bad hair and who finally bought his way into the top 100 with Trump National at #87. Luckily, we are playing the 2003 list so don't have to play it. No doubt it will be off the list in three or four years anyway.

I agree with Peper that it has gotten stupid. So you buy your way onto the list or onto a major championship. The past is littered with courses no one has heard of that hosted one major in the past: Anyone remember Champions Golf Course in Houston, host of the 1969 US Open or Pecan Valley in San Antonio, host of the 1968 PGA?

One of the other problems with having all these new made-for-major courses appear on the list is that you risk pushing off some truly world class courses. It would be a shame if some of the hidden gems on the list such as Cruden Bay, Ganton or Woodhall Spa were someday displaced by all these new designs. The history of the game is important and should be respected. There needs to be a balance between older courses and newer courses and it seems to me that the balance is shifting toward newer, which isn't necessarily a good thing.

For those who have read my write-up of the Fishers Island Club the quote from one of their spokesman is perfect (see our January 2006 archive by clicking here: Fishers Island). At the end of the article, Peper lists the 10 most over-rated courses in the world. This is his list, not mine. Although I agree with him precisely on Muirfield, Baltusrol, The K-Club and Royal Troon. I would have to disagree about Pinehurst and Pine Valley, though.

I also accept his criticism of people who are "conspicuous course collectors". Bless me father, for I have sinned!

Below is the article as published:

Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time. The magazine got great publicity and sold more ads and copies, and I was proud of our biennial list, the first to rank courses from one to 100. Over time, however, I came to realize I’d created a monster.

“You’ve done our club a tremendous disservice,” Pine Valley president Ernie Ransom told me after we pegged his course as No. 1 in the world. “Everyone wants to play here now, and 99 percent of the requests can’t be granted.” Indeed, clubs like Pine Valley, Cypress Point and Seminole—ultra-private enclaves that had long flown under the radar—suddenly gained rock-star status, with their exclusionary practices bared for the world to see. Some didn’t handle it well.

“We do not wish our course to be ranked, visited or for that matter, known. Please convey that message to your panelists,” said a representative of Fishers Island, the remote and remarkable Seth Raynor course accessible only by ferry from New London, Connecticut.

Others milked their status and bilked their visitors. The best example is surely Pebble Beach. In 1980 you could play there for $50. Now it costs $450, and I can’t help thinking that about $150 of that is attributable to Pebble’s position among the world’s top handful of courses.

Among today’s golf architects, getting a course into the Top 100 (on either GOLF’s “Top 100 Courses in the World” list or Golf Digest’s “America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses”) is what winning a major is to a tour pro in terms of prestige and marketability. Egomaniacal developers who once said, “Build me a great course,” now say, “Build me a Top 100 course, no matter the cost,” knowing that a sufficiently grand creation will buy a gander from the judges. As an absurd consequence, course designers have become multimillionaires and multimillionaires have become course designers.

Among golfers, we’ve seen the spawning of a new species: the conspicuous course collector, whose life mission is to play as many of the Top 100 as possible. Then there is the subspecies, the conspicuous club joiner, who collects Top 100 memberships as if they were bag tags—which essentially they are.

This wretched excess would be harmless if not for two problems. First, the lists are inherently flawed. No matter how experienced and knowledgeable, a selection panel will not—cannot—get the ratings right, simply because there is no “right.” Rankings are no more than a collective guess, an objective average of subjective opinions.

The magazines do their best to screen raters; GOLF vets candidates by asking them which courses they’ve seen from the current ballot. My recollection is that the minimum standard is 55 percent of the World list and 40 percent of the courses on the ballot. The problem, of course, is that there is no way to verify whether candidates have actually visited all the courses they claim.

The GOLF panel is small and elite—fewer than 100 people—to keep the levels of knowledge and discernment high. The risk is that they don’t see enough courses. The group includes golf course architects—among them Tom Doak (who ran the rankings until his design career presented a conflict), Pete Dye, Jack Nicklaus—under the theory that they are the most perceptive judges. There is a stipulation that they may not vote for their own courses, but I’m not sure that does the whole job.

My suspicion always has been that competitive instinct compels architects to give low grades to each other’s courses, to the benefit of Donald Ross, Alister Mackenzie, et al., who are not competitors for contracts. Nicklaus once asked me why more of his courses weren’t on the list. (At the time, he didn’t realize his votes for his own courses didn’t count.) “It’s partly because we have people like you on the panel,” I replied.

The GOLF panel also includes public relations execs, resort owners, tour operators, photographers, writers and others with close links to courses. The last I knew, all these conflict-of-interest votes counted. I have little knowledge of the Golf Digest panel, except that it includes more than 800 low-handicap golfers, whose identities, unlike GOLF’s panelists, are kept anonymous. With a group that size, some raters inevitably will be more knowledgeable and responsible than others. I’m also not sure whether all low handicappers may be able to judge the capacity of a course to be enjoyed by all levels of player. But the aspect I’ve always questioned is their ultra-anal grading system. Whereas GOLF simply asks panelists to rate each course from A to F, using his or her own definition of greatness, Golf Digest requires a grade from one to 10 in eight different categories. I can assure you that giving even a single mark to several hundred courses requires a fair amount of concentration. I can’t imagine filling in several thousand boxes, at least not with any sustained diligence and accuracy. It’s no wonder the rankings are a source of constant consternation to the magazines.

Over the last two decades Golf Digest has tweaked its methodology more often than Katie Couric has changed her hairdo, and GOLF quietly began a wholesale re-evaluation of its ranking system recently.The second weakness of the rankings is more important. The magic number—100—is simply too small. There are more than 30,000 courses in the world; to celebrate only 100 is ludicrous. Hell, there are 100 great courses within a three-hour drive of Manhattan! As a consequence, countless courses have gone without the recognition they deserve.

I’d like to repair the mess I’ve made, but I don’t really see a solution. I could rank the 100 most underrated courses, but the moment that list was published, those would no longer be the 100 most underrated. All I can do is try to figure out why some deserving courses miss out, and give a kiss to a few of the fairest bridesmaids. I can think of six reasons that great courses are ignored. The first three, as in real estate, involve location.

As lovely a guy as George Peper is, his opinions have been known to flip-flop from time to time. Isn't it hypocritical to suggest that Pine Valley is overrated, presumably after he wasn't able to gain the required support for membership? And his scorn of those 'collecting top 100 courses' didn't stop him playing the Old Course, Winged Foot and Cypress Point in a 24 hour period some years ago, with the help of Concord and friends with access to private aircraft? And all this from someone who has made a lot of money from a very popular book listing the Top 500 holes in the world. Come on, George. Don't bite the hand that has fed you very nicely over the years as you cast your judgement from your ivory tower that is the Big room in the R&A.

Can't believe Augusta National is on that list, what an absolute travesty. The reasons for the changes are for 'The Tournament' not the course. You have to remember, there isn't just 30-80 year old, stupid rich country club kids, with spoons in there mouths. It's played by the most amazing athletes playing at the top of their games. Before you follow your instincts and degrade all that isn't given to you, remember the 90% of golfers out there that aren't in the elite wealthy. I am a combat veteran with a CIB and a Purple Heart, a guy who shattered his spine and had an 18 hour Spinal Fusion Surgery, who GETS to play golf. I work my butt off to be able to play on the weekends. I only dream about playing the greatest courses, I have chronic pain that has forced me into an early retirement. (Even with speaking 3 fluent languages and having a Masters Degree in Applied Mathematics-just so you know I am not some lower human than you). Oh and by the way, I worked a full-time job to put my self through undergraduate school. I hope you gain a little understanding that not everyone is as fortunate to be able to take this great game for granted. Stop being the reason this game is becoming unworthy of the lowly peasants that can't afford $450 green fees. Places like Pebble Beach could charge $125 and still make their millions through corporations and people like you!!

About Me

My chronicles of playing the top 100 golf courses in the world. My writing is equal parts golf course critique, travelogue and social commentary. I offer my opinions about each course after playing it and also give a sense of the clubs, their atmosphere and traditions. A chance to look behind the scenes into some of the most private clubs in the world. I am a lucky man!